Last year, the twenty-six words that created the Internet were threatened by twenty-six proposals to destroy it. This year will be no different. Congress has made it clear they’re willing to do something about Section 230. That “something” could look like Rep DesJarlais’ (R-TN) Protecting Constitutional Rights from Online Platform Censorship Act; another “must-carry” bill [...]

Since the attacks on the Capitol on January 6th, calls both for and against expanded domestic terrorism authorities have proliferated. Proponents argue that we have allowed bias and blindness to open us to a steadily expanding domestic terror threat and that we need the capabilities provided in the international context. Opponents have pointed out that [...]

Every Wednesday afternoon for years, Black Lives Matter activists and their partners chanted a simple demand outside the Los Angeles County Hall of Justice: “Jackie Lacey Must Go!” Elected in 2012, District Attorney Lacey presided over the largest prosecutorial office in the United States. These protests and the frustrations that fueled them helped propel George [...]

On January 13, 2021, the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility published ABA Opinion 496, “Responding to Online Criticism,” which delineates the ethical restrictions imposed on lawyers who wish to respond to unflattering online reviews. Recognizing the need to adapt to a changing world increasingly characterized by online interactions, the [...]

The Hathras gang rape in Uttar Pradesh in September 2020 saw the mutilation and eventual death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman at the hands of upper-caste men. This pattern of caste-based sexual violence reappeared shortly in the Badaun province of Uttar Pradesh, with the heinous gang rape of a middle-aged Dalit woman by an upper [...]

“The loftier the soul, the more it feels the unity that there is in us all.” – Rabbi Avraham Kook By any reasonable standard, the belligerent nationalism of Realpolitik or power politics makes no sense. After all, without exception, this zero-sum mantra of “everyone-for-himself” clearly undermines every country’s national security. Most perplexing, perhaps, is that [...]

It may be some time before we know everything that President Trump was up to between election day and January 6, 2021, when he urged his followers to go to the Capitol and derail the constitutional process of electoral vote certification. As well, there are likely to be long investigations into the security at the [...]

The judgment in Anjali Guru Sanjana Jaan v. State of Maharashtra gives rise to a deep interpretational incoherence of Article 19(1)(a), i.e. right to freedom of speech and expression. This doctrinal disarray stems from the fact that the Court inadequately interpreted the jurisprudential basis of pluralism set in Nalsa v. UOI. The facts of the [...]

“In the field of law and public interest, there are stars, there are superstars, and then there’s Harry Pregerson.” When you hear the term “judicial activism,” what comes to mind? Do you imagine judges legislating from the bench? Going beyond their constitutional power to interpret the law by considering the broader societal implications of their [...]

Among the Executive Orders that President Joe Biden issued mere hours after being inaugurated as the nation’s forty-sixth president was one repealing former President Donald Trump’s so-called Muslim ban that had placed stringent restrictions on travel to the United States for citizens of a number of majority Muslim countries. The opening sentence of President Biden’s [...]